SEOUL, South Korea (AP) – Xi Jinping’s first visit to the Korean Peninsula as China’s president is to Seoul, not Pyongyang, meaning that North Korea’s best friend has snubbed it for its most bitter rival. A flurry of recent rocket and missile tests, the latest on Wednesday, has made the North’s displeasure crystal clear.
Xi’s choice to meet Thursday with South Korean President Park Geun-hye over North Korean leader Kim Jong Un upends past practice – ever since Beijing and Seoul forged diplomatic ties in 1992 – to make Pyongyang first. It highlights Beijing’s interest in nurturing booming economic ties with Seoul, while sending Pyongyang a message about its destabilizing pursuit of nuclear weapons.
For Washington and the region, it also underlines China’s growing influence on the southern side of the Korean Demilitarized Zone. Beijing, entangled in hostile territorial disputes across Asia, may see an opportunity to boost its influence with the rare neighbor that feels generally positive about China.
“In some ways the budding closeness between Xi and Park echoes much older patterns in East Asia, when China exercised a relatively benign hegemony over many of its neighbors,” said John Delury, an expert on China and Korea at Seoul’s Yonsei University.
It will be Park’s fifth meeting with Xi since she took office early last year.